Lighting a fire at NYCHA

For once, the heat generated in the tediously never-ending game of one-upmanship between Bill de Blasio and Andrew Cuomo will be put to good use — to relieve New York City Housing Authority residents who by the tens of thousands just spent stretches of winter waiting in vain for radiators and hot water pipes to work.

De Blasio told shivering tenants back in January that they would have to wait until July — July! — for crews to show up to begin overhauling aging boilers and heating pipes, and not to expect the job to be done until 2022.

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This Thursday, thank the bureaucrat gods, the mayor announced measures to speed the clock.

Simple stuff — like speeding board of directors approvals and getting designs okayed more quickly — could get the job done as soon as 2020, using $200 million the mayor scraped together to supplement a pittance provided by Washington.

That wasn't so hard, was it?

On it too (Hans Pennink/AP)

De Blasio anticipates a helping hand from one usually more prone to slap him, Cuomo, who, answering the pleas of local elected officials, says he's preparing to issue emergency orders that will speed contractors' hiring.

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A lawsuit filed last week by the citywide council of NYCHA's tenant representatives, demanding prompt solutions to the heat outages and to the authority's pervasive failure to get a handle on lead paint permeating some complexes (which NYCHA boss Shola Olatoye misled the feds about) surely helped clarify the collective mind.

Bill de Blasio once wrote to the authority's chairperson: "NYCHA residents — like all tenants — need to be given the respect and prompt services they deserve." He served then as the city's public advocate. About time he fulfilled his own demand now that he has the power as mayor.